The growing global water shortage is an increasing challenge for the agricultural sector, which aims to produce sufficient quantity and quality of food and animal feed. In our study, effluent water from an intensive African catfish farm was irrigated on grain sorghum plants in four consecutive years. In our study the effects of the effluent on the N, P, K, Na content of the seeds, on the phenological parameters (plant height, relative chlorophyll content), the green mass, and on the grain yield of three varieties (‘Alföldi 1’, ‘Farmsugro 180’ and ‘GK Emese’) were investigated. Five treatments (Körös River (K) water and effluent (E) water: 30 and 45 mm weekly irrigation water dose; non-irrigated control) were applied with micro-spray irrigation. Compared to non-irrigated plants, effluent water did not negatively affect the N, P, K and Na contents of the grain crop. In terms of phenological parameters, the quality of the irrigation water (150–230 cm) had no negative effect on any of the measured parameters compared to the control (133–187 cm) values. In terms of biomass in 2020, grain yields were 89–109 g/plant with variety Alföldi 1, 64–91 g/plant with variety Farmsugro 180, and 86–110 g/plant with GK Emese.

Many attempts on optimization of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] tissue culture induction media have been made, but the culture system remains with some bottlenecks compared to that of other crops. This study aimed at assessing the suitability of various induction media to produce embryogenic callus (yellow and friable) with high induction rates and reduced phenolic exudation. The six culture medium modifications: 3 based on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium and one each based on Chu N6, Gamborg B5 and 190-2 media respectively were applied in the culture of mature embryos from 10 sorghum genotypes. Although there was a genotype influence on the attainment of a yellow callus, friability of the callus was determined to be dependent on the culture medium and not the genotype. Half strength MS medium with 0.2 mg/l 2,4-D with 2.8 g/l Gelrite® as the gelling agent modified with 1.0 g/l KH2PO4, 1.0 g/l L-proline, 1.0 g/l L-asparagine and 0.16 mg/l CuSO4•5H2O (type E) was found to be the most effective resulting in about 60% yellow coloured callus induction with 25% friability. Addition of CuSO4•5H2O, KH2PO4, L-proline and L-asparagine significantly reduced the phenolic production. Half strength MS medium was observed to contribute to quality callus production when compared to full strength MS media modified with the compounds. The half strength MS medium was also observed to suppress phenolic production. Medium 190-2 produced the highest regeneration frequency (40%) among the 3-regeneration media tested. The results provide information on a suitable sorghum callus induction medium necessary for embryogenesis.